Penn Badgley says his mom resuscitated him 'several times a day' as a baby: 'My heart and lungs would stop'
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- Penn Badgley revealed he was born two months premature and required regular resuscitation.
- His mother resuscitated him "multiple times" a day during the first year of his life.
- While his condition "faded away," it influenced Badgley's views on death.
Penn Badgley's early childhood was filled with health scares, the actor recently revealed.
Badgley, who reprises his role as Joe Goldberg in Netflix's "You" on February 9, recently appeared on an episode of the HypocondriActor podcast, where he disclosed that he was born two months premature. His condition required his mother to resuscitate him "multiple times" a day during the first year of his life.
"My heart and lungs would stop," said Badgley, adding that doctors regularly revived him several weeks after his birth.
His mother also had to learn how to resuscitate the newborn, so she could do it herself once Badgley was sent home.
"[She had to do it] multiple times a day because my heart and lungs would stop, and I was on a monitor that would just beep very loudly," he explained.
Badgley added that his cousins still tell stories about how they helped bring him back to life during that time.
"I would be in the back seat, you know, in a car seat hooked up to the monitor, and it would go off, and all anybody had to do is just touch me," Badgley said. "Just human touch would wake me up."
While Badgley's condition "faded away," it influenced his views on death. Since then, the actor says he's "learned a lot" about prenatal and postpartum conditions because of his wife Domino Kirke, a dula.
"Death doesn't scare me," he said. "That sounds weird to say, but... there's some aspect to that where I feel like there's a gravity to the earliest experiences I had... like, I can have a mode that is very solitary and meditative."